We Are Ruled By Idiots: Susan Collins/Ben Nelson division

Update: TPM points out in one of their updates to this story that (a) the list of proposed cuts keeps changing and (b) that this is in fact an effort to secure the votes for passage of the bill. So on the theory that some bill is better than none, this may be worth the effort. But the choices still matter, and cutting science and technology and public health when the bill still retains less-efficient tax cuts is folly. If the 100 billion that the group seeks to cut slashed tax side money at least as much (and much better much more) than shovel-ready spending, then it would be more palatable. But given the sausage injunction, I’ve toned down the language of disdain below.

From TPM comes this word: that Senator Collins (R(know nothing)-ME and Senator Nelson (D(who won that last election?)-NE) have come up the almost 80 billion dollars worth of cuts to the stimulus that will somehow speed our transition back into a simulacrum of economic health.

TPM highlighted the 1.4 billion cut in stimulus funding for the NSF — 100% of the total proposed in the Democratic majority bill. But in fact the proposals are actually much worse than the topline message at TPM indicates. One thing that becomes clear from reading the details of the Nelson/Collins “compromise” is that these folks just don’t get science. Which means, in essence that they do not get how to stimulate an economy: you want to spend the money on stuff that not only gets cash into circulation fast (as buying equipment, hiring students and researchers, renting space, paying for telephony and all the rest actually do), but on stuff that will produce more money-making (and spending) activity in the future.

That is to say, science and its applications leads to figuring stuff out that makes a difference in people’s lives. Tax cuts, by contrast, do so only indirectly, if at all, and at a fraction of the efficiency that comes from actually just hiring people to go out get to work.

What we are seeing here, thus, is an example of the operative definition of neurosis — the repetition of an action over and over again, whilst expecting a different outcome this time — our distinguished representatives, especially almost every Republican (Ben! What are you doing in such company?) serving in Congress right now — are effectively residents of Bedlam

So: what is it that that Collins and Nelson et al. can’t quite see themselves voting for:

Starting from the top, at the Department of Agriculture: Whack $100 million off food research — 100 % of the total proposed.

Next: $750 million gone from NASA’s exploration budget, half of the proposed total, along all of the 1.4 billion NSF money, as mentioned above.

Next: NOAA gets a haircut to the tune of $422 million, a 35% trim — suck on that Florida and the rest of the hurricane belt, just for starters — while the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the most important unknown agencies in the government, loses $750 million, or half of its proposed stimulus funding.

And the hits keep coming! One billion, 38% of the total, off of the DOE’s energy efficiency/renewable energy research budget — now there’s some forward looking policy! 4.5 billion — big numbers, folks — or 47% of proposed funds for DOE’s EISA energy technology loan guarantee program. That’s money that goes to folks in private industry (get that free market zealots — companies out in the world) to support commercial-potential energy research. There is a bunch of political-economy debate you can have about how best to do this, but basically this is money spent to reduce our dependence on energy sources that have been the focus of conflict for a long, long time. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

The beat goes on. I’m not sure if you’d call this research, but the enriched uranium processing funds get removed altogether, to the tune of 390 mil. And the DOE Office of Science — which, for those that want to see a nuclear energy future is a major source of research funds — also loses all the proposed stimulus it would otherwise receive, $100 million.

On the next page of the good senators’ proposal, Department of Homeland Security loses all of the 14 million bucks proposed for cybersecurity research. Damn — why don’t we just tell Bin Laden to get his cryptographers rolling? And this is surely not scientific research, but these deep thinkers want to cut all 20 million from the Interior Dept’s dream of creating a department wide modern computer and financial management system. Heaven forfend that the goverment might actually be given the tools to run more effectively!

Let’s see. What atrocities lurk on this page? How about a 100 percent cut — 610 million — for Department of Eductation disability research. 5.185 billion, 90% of the total sought, hacked off the HHS’s desire to spend money on disease prevention. It’s somehow better for the economy to let HIV infected folks go untested and, perhaps, remain disease vectors, than it is to spend money, right now, on work that could save people’s lives.

Other people will, I’m sure, comment on the foolishness of many of the other choices — one of my favorites at a time when (a) US physical infrastructure is in pieces, lagging well behind the quality of basic transport in many of our competitors, and (b) when projects that get US citizens out on the roads and bridges building stuff would be a damn good idea (wait for the new jobless claims tomorrow, if you haven’t figured that one out), these Solons seem to think hauling 5.5 billion in discretionary DOT project funds makes sense.

I mean really? Just to talk for a moment to my neighbors up the highway: Maine, you need roads and bridges just like the rest of us, and you could surely use an extension of the rail line up to Brunswick at least (if you make your money off tourism, figuring out how to get tourists past the bottlenecks in the road system might be a good idea. Just sayin…), and so on and on,=. With all that, what were you thinking when you sent your pinnacle of legislative competence back to Washington last Nov?

But I digress. Add up all the science/medicine/technology spending Nelson and Collins want to eliminate and it adds up to over 14 billion dollars. That’s a lot of science, technological development and public health, that won’t get done if these two have their way. And all this is spending that is, to use the mantra targeted, timely, and as temporary as anything else in government.

In the end what I see here is legislative frivolousness. This isn’t a list that suggests anyone thought about what they were doing or why. It’s just a bit of Washington “bipartisanship.” If you want cuts, get rid of the tax breaks that everyone who actually studies the record of such things agree are the least effective way of adding life to our stricken economy, and spend the money on people and things right now. And if you can do it buying work that will continue to pay off in the future — that might even be good governance. Perish the thought.

Yes, Sen. Nelson is close to being a “D” in name only, it’s true. That’s the only way anybody with a “D” wins in Nebraska. Though Obama did win the Omaha electoral vote by a margin of about a dozen. Is that what you call “political capital,” then?

I’d like to think this is an attempt by the rep. side to shift the Overton window (and it may well be), but frankly it looks like the 100bil that they want to cut is exactly the 100bil that I actually wanted to see come out of this. Frankly I think tax cuts should be dropped from the bill altogether. Those of us working and making money aren’t really the ones being murdered by this economy. Stunted, sure, but recoverable. It’s fairly simple: huge debts like this don’t get paid out because the country cut its budget down. The debt gets covered when the GDP grows more rapidly than the deficit: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/83/246565828_264a91facd.jpg

Increase the GDP; reduce payout to the middle east for oil by improving the local energy situation (higher efficiency, new technologies, homegrown energy sources, and not just one). Among other things, of course, but it generally hinges on technology improvement (science).

Tax refund is a republican welfare check. Anything of this nature needs to be directed at extended unemployment funding- you know, people who are still eligible to work being helped to remain a piece of the economy and hopefully retain their homes (and not continue to crash the housing market).

On a related note: I did notice that as soon as mention of cutting compensation for corporations assisted by the .gov to maximum government pay scales happened, the corporations started talking about giving the money back. Funny joke, taking billions from the taxpayers for personal bonuses.